In organising the Past & Present Reading Group within the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, the first text that was chosen by the group was a book that is certainly no shrinking violet. After all, Peter Thomas’ The Gramscian Moment was the winner in 2011 of the Premio internazionale Giuseppe Sormani, awarded by the Fondazione Istituto Piemontese Antonio Gramsci in Turin for the best book on Gramsci between 2007 and 2011. The Gramscian Moment also comes out at a considerable 400 plus pages to deliver a truly canonical statement on what a philologically precise reading of the Prison Notebooks offers students and scholars interested in Antonio Gramsci today. The anticipation and interest in reading the book was thus extremely strong within the group, whether amongst those that were reading it for the first time, or those that were returning to the text for an additional visit. How can one summarise some of the main currents coursing through The Gramscian Moment? What lies beneath the surface waters of the text and what elements did the group spotlight in navigating their passage through this essential read?
